Worship like a Dog
by xXBeckyFoo
Summary: The four times Seth hears Kate after she's gone.


When all of this began Seth thought Richie was the crazy one. The son of a bitch was not only seeing things that weren't really there, he heard shit in that thick skull of his that no one else did. Seth worried about his brother becoming unhinged. The closer they got to doom—otherwise known as the fucking Titty Twister—he was becoming convinced that if El Rey did not fix him, there would be no other alternative than to commit him. When it was revealed the snake queen, fucking _Santanico_ , was the one speaking to Richie, Seth still thought his brother was insane for wanting to become a culebra. No matter what way he looked at it, Richie had truly fucking lost it (and there had been a bunch of crazy assholes in their family tree).

But now Seth heard voices, too. He heard _her_. Over and over again.

 **i.**

The first time he heard her it wasn't exactly her. It was almost like a whisper, fragile and breathy. Seth had been contemplating the previous hours (hiding was the better term for it, but no one had to know that), giving the culebras upstairs time to assimilate to the new Gecko world order that was going to change their damned lives from here on out. Maybe the whisper had been nothing at all; Seth had been on the verge of unconsciousness, every muscle in his body releasing the rigidity they had locked into since the moment he got on the highway to hell. His eyelids fluttered, his mind begging him to drift off and welcome the darkness. Amid that, however, he heard it. It was not a comprehensible word, but he had become so in tuned with every sigh she gave that he was back on his feet.

"Where the hell are you going?" demanded Richie when Seth intercepted him outside of Jackknife Jed's. Richie and another culebra were returning from scattering Carlito's body so the sick son of a bitch could never find his way back whole.

"It's not where I'm going. It's where _we_ are going. Get back in the car," commanded Seth as he walked over to the passenger side, pulling open the door. " _Now_."

"It's almost daylight. I ain't going nowhere."

"You're gonna show me where—" The threat Seth was making paralyzed itself at the tip of his tongue. A shock of grief burnt his skin like lightning had just struck him. His jaw squared off, teeth clamped down as to keep hostage a scream he had not known he wanted— _needed_ —to give. Seth Gecko was a proud motherfucker, through and through; that instability he felt beneath his feet was enough to make him walk back inside, to forget the entire thing, but he couldn't. He couldn't forget it. He couldn't forget her. The hum of her voice still rang in his ears and he needed to follow it. He needed to _see_ her.

Taking a deep breath, Seth looked back at his brother with a guarded gaze. "I want to bury her."

That fucking infuriating glint of superiority Richie had been sporting since he had become a culebra diminished (granted, it was a Gecko trademark to be an arrogant dipshit, but it multiplied when you were the spawn of satan). Something flashed across his pale expression, Seth could see. A reminder. Of her. Of the moment it happened.

"Well? Get in the car before you turn into a pile of ash and fangs."

"I can't," Richie ground out, his palms tightening into fists at his sides. "Take Scott."

"I'm not taking mini culebra. I'm taking you. So get in the fucking car before I smash your nose in." Seth climbed into the passenger seat, glaring through the glass.

Richie took in a ragged puff of air before marching back to the car. He kept his mouth shut, blasting the radio and drove off. It was the only way not to let the silence torture him or Seth.

The sun was rising on the horizon in bright shades when they arrived at the blood well. Richie kept his blue eyes ahead, fingers tightening over the steering wheel. Seth noticed this, but did not ask— _did_ _not_ _care_ — what was running through his head. He opened the door and let his feet guide him. He hadn't brought a shovel, nor did he have a plan; all Seth knew was that he wanted to hold her, to see her face one more time before he had to put her in the ground where he would mourn her forever.

But there was no body for Seth to see.

A roar erupted from his throat and into the morning, forcing the blue in the sky to come out from behind the reddish haze. What greeted him was a dry blotch of blood. Fuck, oh fuck, was there a lot of blood. What had Carlos done to her? Did she suffer? Was it prolonged? Did her fucking God come down from behind the moon and take her straight to paradise?

"He shot her." Richie stood before Seth, face grimacing at the burnt skin that was mending itself from the contact it made with the sunlight on his way to the shade. "Twice."

"Don't," muttered Seth. He had the questions but he didn't want the answers. He didn't want to imagine the scene. He didn't want to know her pain.

"She didn't let Scott turn her...She didn't let me turn her."

Of course she didn't. She was so similar to Seth in that extent. By no means was he anywhere fucking near to her kind of holy, but they both believed in their humanity. As screwed up, as twisted as this world was, they loved being human. Flaws, weakness, and all. As much as she had wanted to save Scott, find him a stairway to heaven, there was a line she would never cross. She would never lose her warmth. She would cling on to it until her last breath.

And she did.

 **ii.**

The second time Seth heard her voice it was in his dreams.

Three weeks had passed since she'd been gone, since he had signed himself up to become half of a lord of vampires. Being the king of something makes promises of kicking your feet up, having someone wait on you hand and foot, and getting real fat. That had been the goal from the moment the Gecko legacy took Seth and Richie hostage. There were no visions of white-picket fences, little brats running around, domesticated lives, or honorable job titles. The endgame was to escape sirens, flashing red and blue lights, to sip cold beer at the side of paradise. They never had much, Seth and Richie, especially not with their deadbeat father, nor with the modest life Uncle Eddie tried to provide for them, but, oh, did they think they were entitled motherfuckers. Seth and Richie thought the world was up for the taking—it was the curse of the Geckos, really. They thought they owned everything, even what did not belong to them.

Life on the throne was not everything Seth thought it would be. Yes, he had stacks of dollar bills, tributes offered on bent knees, monsters at his command, fear at his presence, respect of his name, and women promising to make his every fantasy come true. Still, there was a void. They didn't write that down on the job description. They didn't fucking tell you how lonely, how exhausted, how _bored_ you would be. The days went by, but you wasted them from your seat at the top of the foodchain. Seth would often look at his side, wondering if Richie felt the emptiness, too.

He didn't, of course. Richie's desires had been fulfilled. He was the boss. He was the king. Nothing fucking mattered but the power he now possessed.

After abusing the alcohol flowing day in and day out into Jackknife Jed's, Seth would pass out on his dingy, unfit bed (sometimes with a pretty little number redressing before scurrying off) and he would gratefully welcome the blankness of unconsciousness. He used to have nightmares every single day after the Twister, but now there was nothing. There were no flashbacks to that fucking labyrinth, seeing Richie light up their father, culebras charging at him, or Santanico transforming his brother into her demon puppet. He didn't even see Uncle Eddie's dying face, using his last breath to make his nephews promise they would take care of each other and remain a family. At first Seth believed it was a blessing there was nothing plaguing his head, but sometimes, when reality was too fucking warped, he hoped they would come back. He wanted to remember a life before this.

Truth was, whether Seth wanted to accept it or not, there was no life before this. Nothing existed before entering the Twister. Not Texas, not prison, not Vanessa, nor childhood memories. Everything was wiped away the moment he was forced to believe in the devil and his demons.

Except with _her_.

He had those nights in Mexico. The first few weeks were hell, consequences of escaping it, but there were glimmers of something good. There were flashes of light in his darkness. And they came from her. Because sometimes, past the nightmares and the nest of culebras they had to escape, there was freedom.

Since ascending the throne, the first dream Seth had is of the first time he made her laugh.

They had been on the run, one sketchy motel to another, for a month, and the silence was still so prominent. They spoke to each other only when they needed to—a _"behind you!"_ while tossing a stake to slay the fucking culebras trying to make them their dinner, or a _"I'll shower first"_ after escaping said fight, both eager to wash off the blood and guts of their enemies. When they hid for days at a time, never leaving their room, the maddening silence made Seth wonder why the hell he ever agreed in having her tag along. This was not a life fit for a teenage girl, nor was it ideal for a condemned criminal to carry baggage that would only hold him down. One night after another Seth contemplated leaving a share of their loot on the table before slipping off into the night while she slept. He thought of his getaway strategy so often he perfected it, but he never had the balls to go through with it. He never found the will to leave her. He wanted to desperately believe remorse tied him to her, for what he had done to her family, but it was _selfishness_. Because after every won fight, Seth would turn to his side and see her there. She was silver lining to an inferno he thought he'd find himself alone in.

After a successful robbery at a local bank, they had stopped to celebrate with burritos and beers, Seth saw her lose herself on a family throwing their little girl a birthday party across the street from the restaurant. Seth was not a mind reader to know what she'd been pondering in that moment, but it was only after that he realized he didn't know her birthday. In the lives of thieves and the hunted there was no time for sentimentality—but once in awhile it was okay to turn the other cheek.

While she slept he went to the market at the end of the block. He bought a giant bottle of tequila and things he needed to execute his plan. Of course, normal, domesticated routines were not his forte. The smoke alarm went off when the makeshift stove caught on flames.

She woke with a jolt, pulling a gun from beneath her pillow as Seth cursed. When she noticed there was no immediate threat, her sleepy eyes adjusted to her surroundings. Not only did she notice Seth using a towel to put out the fire on the stove, but the streamers and balloons taking up lacking space in their small motel room.

" _What's going on?"_ she asked with a raspy voice, setting her gun back on the mattress.

" _What does it fucking look like, princess?"_ Seth hissed. _"It's your birthday."_

She raised an eyebrow at him. _"It's July."_

" _So?"_

" _So my birthday is in December,"_ she returned.

He cursed, pulling back his hand after he burnt it on the overheated pan. _"Well, I didn't fucking know that, did I?"_

As a few moments in silence lived and died, the sleep wore off on her. Her mind cleared and she processed what was happening before her. She took one step toward Seth, eyeing him carefully. When he stared back, annoyed, but harmless, she peered over his shoulder to the mess he made.

" _Did you throw water into the frying pan? While it was full with oil?"_

" _I was trying to fry you some eggs!"_

That was when she burst out laughing. It was the first time since—well, since fucking _ever_ , because she didn't actually have a reason to laugh when he kidnapped her, did she?—that Seth heard the sound. He was immediately transfixed by it.

She stood there, a few inches from him, her brown hair knotted and messy on top of her head, old pajama shorts and tank top, dirt from the previous night smudged on her face, but she looked like a goddamn angel. The sunlight from outside the motel poured in through the window, illuminating around her like a halo. Her laugh was music. She was the good in the bad.

That was also the first time Seth hugged her.

He marched forward, ceasing the distance between them, to wrap his arms around her. She was startled at first, growing rigid, but when he buried his face in her neck, refusing to let go, she understood his quiet message.

She held on back. Because their lives were a nightmare, but in it they had each other—no matter how fucked up it all was.

He knew it was the Gecko curse again, thinking he owned everything, even what didn't belong to him. So Seth clung on to her, knowing damn well the only way she survived this was far away from him.

 **iii.**

Her voice was the product of poison the third time he heard it.

Four months into the Geckos running Malvado's operation, it was advised to the brothers to host a meeting with the other crime lords (not to be confused with the Nine Lords, who have yet paid them a visit after the deaths of two of their own). Seth snorted at the culebra that made the suggestion, but Richie, being more business inclined, agreed. They needed to show what they were packing, he told Seth when the latter put up a fight on the subject; the other 'associates' needed to be reminded they ruled the game now, that nothing could be denied or restricted from them. So Richie pulled all the stops for a massive party at Jackknife Jed's, right down to the strippers and drugs.

While Richie learned to loosen up (or at least pretend to), Seth scouted the perimeter, refusing to join the circle of crime lords drinking and discussing lighter issues of their business intersections. He spotted Scott at the edge of the bar, drinking back a Bloody Mary ( _now made with a hundred percent real blood!_ ), while surveying the area, too. After slicing Carlos' head off, Seth had been sure Scott would disappear into the night, find some hole to loathe himself in, go on a complete fucking bender to the point Ranger Gonzalez would be forced to put his culebra ass down, but he never left. He retreated into the shadows of Jackknife Jed's, and Richie nor Seth ever told him to leave. It was almost painfully ironic that it happened like this, Seth keeping a Fuller after surviving tragedy once again. But it wasn't like last time. It wasn't surviving as much as it was just existing. Seth was reminded of that every time he looked at Scott; there was an emptiness in his eyes, on his face, on his entire being that made it impossible to be near him. He wanted Scott to fuck off back to Bethel—to anywhere else—so he didn't have to see what he felt on someone else, too.

Still, Seth kept his mouth shut. He had ruined Scott's life more than once to abandon him now. Besides, he owed her, didn't he? She died trying to save Scott. If Seth threw him out, if Scott got killed or went on another murder spree, then she would have died for nothing...

Somehow that night Seth ended up surrounded by naked women who promised to make him forget his name. He was inclined to let them. He would take anything that made him forget about the constant hole in his chest that leaked grief. The women brought drugs back to his room. Seth watched them line up the powder, using one of his dollar bills to snort it. He thought he kicked the habit when Richie came back, when everything played out the way he and Santanico planned it, but that idea had been a disguised lie. He had not grown immune to the stuff. He simply had been too fucking preoccupied trying to rig the game set out for him to let his body remember the addiction. Now temptation was before him again, calling out to him as he bled out.

Seth licked his lips, staring back at the inviting escape like a feast after going hungry for so long. But something in him stopped him. Instead, he used that frustration on the naked women tugging at his clothes.

The following day Seth showed up to Jackknife Jed's for business, but walked into a goddamn meth lab. The culebras charged with clean-up duty collected the leftover drugs and stacked them on the bar to wait for further instruction. Seth couldn't keep his eyes off the pounds of powdered bliss. That something inside of him from the previous night woke up again, urging him to walk away, and it almost won once more—until Richie came in, clapping Seth hard on the back, throwing commands at his fellow culebras of what needed to be done for the day. It's Richie's tone, _his fucking nerve_ , that reminded Seth just how many people had to die for them to get to where they were now.

Like the fucking artist that he is as a thief, Seth grabbed a small bag from the table, shoving it into his pocket without a single eye batted at his direction. He spent the rest of the day looking at his watch, tapping his foot, wanting— _needing_ —the day to be over so he could fill his veins with his ruin.

It didn't just happen that once. It happened every night. At first it was a means of escape that had Seth coming back, switching from snorting to injecting the venom, but he begun to praise the darkness that engulfed him, tearing him away from the reality he settled for. Until that night when he refused to sleep and heard her in his lucid state.

 _"Seth,"_ she whispered in his ear. _"Don't leave me, Seth. Come back. Come to me. I need you."_

He stood from his bed, kicking off the tangled sheets, and pulled out drawers, cleaned out his closet, overturned his mattress, and broke the walls. He searched every centimeter of his room for her, his heart in overdrive with sweet, painful longing that made the damn thing collide against his bones, bruising them.

Then the drugs faded and he found himself alone again.

He fell to his knees, gasping, his soul dying all over again. The pain was alive, living beneath his skin, oozing out to puddle around him. A small, rational part of his brain told him he could never do this to himself again, but the next night he takes a higher dose and his bloodstream is tainted more in poison than it is in red. He doesn't care how reckless it is...If he could hear her again, then it was worth his constant destruction.

Richie, of course, disagreed after being informed by a servant culebra what Seth was up to most nights. He kicked the door off its hinges, invading Seth's room to search for the drugs to flush them down the toilet, breaking needles and pipes with just two fingers.

Seth didn't try to fight him. Drugs were at their disposal just as fucking easily as a glass of whiskey was. But Richie had the balls to punch him, making him stumble back and smack his head on the edge of the nightstand. Once Seth got back on his feet it turned to a straight out fist fight.

"This is what you've been doing all this time? Retaking the fucking path to be a junkie?" Richie hissed as he landed a punch to Seth's ribs.

"You fucking knew," snarled Seth. "You can smell that shit in the air by sticking your tongue out, can't you, culebra?"

Scott appeared at the doorway, staring back at the chaos while swinging back a flask containing a concoction of bourbon and blood.

"Get your shit together," Richie said instead, low and commanding. "If they know one of us is weak they will come for our empire."

"Is that all you fucking care about? The operation? What about—!" Seth stopped himself. It had been four months and he still couldn't say it, couldn't say her name. "How do you fucking stand it, Richard? How do you fucking _live_ knowing all of this came with the loss of innocent lives? But you don't feel, do you? You're a fucking _dead_ , _cold_ thing! You don't—"

A fist smashed against Seth's jaw. Richie's blue eyes turned yellow, his fangs exposing as he shoved Seth back into a wall, hissing.

"I didn't want anyone to die! I didn't want _her_ to die! I tried to save her! How do you think I fucking feel, Seth? How fucking repugnant am I that she chose to die than to take my venom and live?" Another fist hit Seth's face. "You made her hate me!"

It had been a fucking screaming match up to that point, but it was Richie's final yell that produced silence. The hurt was out in the open. It came from all angles. It was not just Seth's anymore, it was Richie's, too. It threatened to flood the room, to drown them all.

It would be a lie if Seth did not admit he had wondered—had _known_ —Richie had a soft spot for her ever since they met. There was a connection. One desperate, lost soul trying to find another, seeking comfort in this big, bad world they lived in. They kissed in the Twister, and Seth had walked in right on time for the show. Richie had never been a lady's man, he had never done things as directed by his penis; his brain ran him, guided him, and he chose his path based on logic (or whatever that fucking manipulating bitch Santanico wanted him to do). So when they crossed that line between kidnapper and victim to complicated affection, Seth knew she was some sort of special to Richie.

But then Richie royally fucked things up. He chose Santanico, leaving Seth on his own. When he exited the Twister, too fucking tired to think about what he had just survived, or the broken heart he now carried, she came out from the other side of the light and asked if she could join him. Seth knew he was a bastard, but a fucking bastard never. That, too, had been a lie. He took her with him, riding off into a Mexican dirt road to look for something new.

It was during those shattered nights that Seth and her became one. And he didn't feel a shred of guilt for taking her from Richie.

"It was supposed to happen," Scott's voice echoed around the room, making the Geckos clock in on him for the first time. "She was supposed to die."

"Shut the fuck up," growled Seth. "This was not how it was supposed to end."

"Wasn't it?" returned Scott after letting out a humorless chuckle, his gaze hollow. "Was she just supposed to go back home and be normal after the Twister? No, it was fate. It called her—it called all of us to that godless place." He paused to drink from his flask. "She was our salvation," he added, something in him breaking to pieces as he revealed what he had contemplated so many times over. Something all of them had thought, believed, and accepted—something they could never say aloud.

But Scott had liquid courage and his eyes met Richie first. "You put a gun to her head, but she trusted you. She believed in you when we all thought you were fucking crazy. She saw a goodness inside of you that you even forgot you once had."

Richie stepped away from Seth, the natural blue of his eyes coming back. He briefly gave resemblance to that frightened, damaged boy Seth grew up with, but his features, sad and vulnerable, become cold and distant.

Scott turned to Seth. "You were the reason everything went to shit. You took her to hell and made her question her faith. Still, she stayed with you and learned to care for you. She became your home. She became the reason you lived. She gave you the chance to love again."

Seth can't pull a Richie. He can't detach himself from his bruised, black heart. Not while it continued to beat and pump blood, not while it conspired with his traitorous mind to unforgivably produce every memory he had of her.

"I abandoned her more times than anyone else," Scott continued, clutching the flask until he indented the sides. "I'm her brother and made her kill, made her betray... But she loved me more than I deserved. She risked her life, defied God so my soul could be saved. She was our fucking salvation and we got her killed. But that's what darkness does. It snuffs out the light. And as long as she loved us, she was always going to die."

 **iv.**

He's in the last place on earth he thought he would ever be when he hears her voice again.

Santanico returned after seven months of departure. Although she's greeted with open arms by Richie (something that made her grimace, forcing her to keep a cool distance as a reminder that she's not his, that she belonged only to herself), Seth avoided her at all costs. He knew he would begin plotting her death the moment he was forced in a close perimeter with her. Sure, he saved her from Malvado, but that had been a one time thing. A momentary truce. After that was broken, he remembered how she destroyed all their lives. How her obsessive longing to escape her prison came with a price everyone but her had to pay.

He knew she was aware of his incline to stab her in the back, of his daydreaming of slicing her up into pieces just as they had done with Carlos, so when Seth's mind started playing tricks on him he knew it was her, torturing him, driving him insane just as she'd done to Richie.

Seth began to see _her_.

At first he thought they were images conjured up by his subconscious after revisiting those Mexican nights of Bonnie and Clyde adventures, but she's outside his head. She is a flash when he opens the window to let sunlight in. She is a shadow when he walks through a small mercado they cased months—a _lifetime_ —ago. She is a squeeze at his side when he bought her a charm from a stand, her arm looping through his. She is a smile on the passenger seat of his car, dark hair blowing in different directions as they race against the wind. She is warmth beside his bedside, reminding him that he was human, that he wasn't alone.

But she's gone time and time again and Seth is stabbed with cold fucking reality when he can't catch her before she disappears. It's fucking maddening— _agony_ —he can't even breathe. He takes a gun from inside his drawer and hunts down that goddamn snake queen. He found her with Richie discussing the possibility of another hostile takeover when he presses the gun at her head, shaking to his fucking core. Santanico could've disarmed him, they had all been aware of that, but she held off, letting Richie stand warily from his seat to sedate Seth (oh, the fucking irony of it all).

"You're having a bad trip, brother," Richie said tentatively, hands raising to motion for Seth to hand him the gun. "Come on. Sleep this off."

"It's not a fucking trip, Richard," hissed Seth, turning from him to press the gun harder against satan's wife. "Get out of my head, you goddamn bitch! I'm not Richie! I'm not gonna sit back and let you fuck up my life!"

Richie paused in his attempt, eyes narrowing on Santanico. His voice comes out sharp when he asked, "Are you screwing with his head?"

Santanico scoffed back with annoyance.

It made Seth grab the armrest of her seat, spinning her to make her face him. He reached for her jaw, squeezing, sinking his nails in deep. Her eyes flared a dangerous yellow, but she remained passive at the torment in his dark features. "Stop showing me her," he threatened with a trembling hand.

"Her?" It was Richie. "You're seeing Ka—"

" _Richard_ —" warned Seth.

"She's dead, brother. She's gone."

"Because of you! Because of her!" Santanico hissed when Seth clutched on to her skin with intent of ripping it right off.

"I didn't take her to that blood well," she said to Seth, finally pulling herself out of his grasp, patience gone. "I didn't put two bulletholes in her body."

"But you lured us to that fucking temple," Seth reminded her. "None of this would've happened if you hadn't made my brother crazy!"

"I wasn't crazy," snapped Richie.

"Maybe," huffed Santanico, fleetingly taking blame, "but you took her with you. You let her come along on this ride you were on just so you could get on the carpool lane. You could've sent her home, but you kept her, surrounded her by culebras, and now she's _dead_."

Seth raised the gun again in her direction. He pulled back the trigger without another thought, but Richie jumped between the bullet and the fucking snake bitch, taking it to the shoulder, snarling, fangs out.

"That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?" Santanico continued, watching unmoved as Richie held Seth back when he tried to leap forward and attack. "You wanted to hear it's your fault. You wanted the blame—Richie's included because you still feel responsible for everything he does. So, yes, it's _your_ fault. But you're not mad at me or him. You're mad at yourself because you know being angry doesn't sedate the pain you're in. What you want—what you _really_ want—is her, but she's dead. So let me give you a piece of advice, Seth," she took a calculating step forward, "what you really need is her forgiveness. So go find it."

It takes five days of mauling over Santanico's words, of seeing those delusional flashes of a life that no longer exists, for him to get into his car and drive. He doesn't know where he's going, but he's guided by the memories, controlled by them until he ends up at a rundown chapel in the middle of fucking nowhere.

He sits in his car, drinking back whiskey, for what seems like a lifetime. He contemplates turning on the ignition, heading back, but he sees her in the distance, like a fucking mirage after being stranded in the desert for days, and that's all he needs to get up.

Seth's fucking sure he's going to go up in flames when he walks in, but nothing happens. It's lonely inside, too. Cold. Silent. _Haunting_. He hasn't been to church since his grandmother died, but all he can remember of that day was his mother threatening to leave his father while Richie gaped down at the body in the casket, poking at it like it was a hill of ants. Seth doesn't know what do with himself, but somehow ends up at the front of the chapel, kneeling down before a giant, empty cross.

The second he closes his eyes it's like a fucking tsunami plunders his body to the dark, unknown depths of the ocean. He's drowning with brief smiles, stolen glances, shy touches, protective embraces, echoes of laughter, sharp cries, burning yells, broken bones, bloodied faces, stolen cars, robbed convenience stores, monsters, and gods.

"I should've never left you, princess," he whispers, aware of the tears down his cheeks. "I should've forced you back into the car and drove off, found the fucking beach like you wanted. I should've done right by you, gotten a goddamn day job and given you a home. But I never thought I needed a settled place because I had you. Now you're fucking gone, Kate, and I can't find my way back."

"Seth," he hears her voice again, right against his ear, hot and wet, making his skin ignite. "You found me, Seth. I'm right here. Open your eyes."

He squeezes his eyelids tighter, unashamedly afraid of the things his head produces like a child hiding from the monsters at the end of his bed. But it's been seven months since she's been gone, and he longs for her more than he is terrified of going insane. He opens his eyes and he's sure there is no turning back, no more being the fucking sane one when he sees her before him, all dressed in white, looking like a goddamn angel. _A goddess_.

If she is, he will stay on his knees for the rest of his fucking miserable life. He will worship her until the sun burns out and the world ends in cold, bitter darkness. He will devote his life to this rundown shack—all for her, all to see her again.

"I've told you once before," she says softly, leaving the altar to approach. Her hand reaches for him and she gently, lovingly strokes his face like in a dream so long ago. She's cold and something about her touch sends warning signals to his brain, fueling his fight-or-flight instincts, but it's nothing compared to the force of his beating heart that finally has what it's been desperately yearning for. "I could never leave you."

Seth wraps his arms around her, pulling her in, and she holds on back. His life is a nightmare, but in that very moment he has her—no matter how fucked up it all is.


End file.
